Quintessential Quarter Horse

In the early days of the National Muscle Car Association (NMCA) and street-legal drag racing, both racers and officials had their heads and hearts in the right place. The cars had real street credibility, almost to a fault. We're talking windshield wipers, blinkers, you name it. While many of those rules have gone by the wayside in the name of progress and safety (trading the original framerails for a tube chassis, losing the carpet, and other weight-saving tricks), there is a renewed interest among the racers to get back to the little street details that made them get into the hobby in the first place. This turbocharged Mustang built for NMCA Super Street, owned by Fayetteville, Georgia's Chris Collins, is a great example of this new breed.

Other top Mustang racers, like successful Matt Scranton of Florida, have the same idea. Maybe it's a Southern thing? Collins is a great kid, getting married soon to his longtime sweetheart, Carrie, and is staunchly loyal to his University of Georgia Bulldogs. He's so loyal that he admitted to PHR that had the Georgia/Tennessee football game been scheduled on the same weekend as Orlando's World Streetnation-als (where we shot this car), he'd have just as soon ditched the drags for his personal pigskin classic.

When we came upon this 26-year-old Dairy Queen franchise owner for the first time, he was sitting in his racer, presumably doing a little mental preparation for the day's rounds. Nope, he was listening to the radio, slickly incorporated into the factory location.

"Guys keep coming by and saying, 'Chris, I think you left your battery switch on, 'cause your brake lights are on' I tell 'em that's because my foot is on the brake pedal--that's one of the ways the car is wired to get power to my CD player!"

This guy has a good attitude. So good that when he filled out his PHR car feature tech sheet, the one where we get this data to write a story, he left nothing out. Usually, the drag racers leave the lines blank for mileage, miles driven, etc. Not Chris. For the "miles per gallon at 50 mph" spot he fills in "2." Sounds like a fast car to us!

Chris first got interested in street-legal drag racing for the same reason that keeps him going now: he likes quick drag cars with street credibility. That got him into a 3,200-pound '71 Chevelle for NMCA Super Street that ran mid-8s at 165 mph with a nitrous-fed aluminum big-block with Pro Stock-style Olds DRCE heads. It was a handful at that speed, thanks to its stock front suspension and brick-like aero package. After seeing Matt Scranton's then-Vortech-blown Mustang consistently getting down a marginal track at a Shreveport street-legal event, Chris and his dad, Max, knew they should build a similar car to stay competitive and have more fun. After all, Chris was already driving a Mustang on the street.

This particular car was found in July of 1999 as a burned-up wreck and brought to Zartech Chassis of Dallas, Georgia, the group that builds a lot of the big-tire Outlaw cars so popular on the eighth-mile strips in the South. It's now an SFI 25-1C legal racer (deemed safe for the 6s), thanks to a back-halved chassis with a Strange strut system up front, four-link in the rear, and Wilwood brakes all around. The body is all stock Ford Mustang, with a Saleen body kit to boot. "I really like the look of the Saleen tuner cars and wish that we could get more involved with them," says Chris. Credit Decatur, Georgia's Mike Lewis with the awesome silver-and-purple paint scheme.

The interior is an important feature here, as Collins wouldn't race a car that didn't have a stock dash, original door panels, power windows, etc. "We did take a bunch of weight out of the stock interior parts, but they're still there and that's good to me." Chris likes his stereo, too. "If it doesn't kill us with weight, we'd like to add some more audio equipment to this car. Right now it has four speakers and a high-power Pioneer deck, but I'd like to add some bass!" He can get away with this thanks to a 140-amp alternator. With EFI from F.A.S.T. and data acquisition, it requires at least that much recharging power to keep the batteries up. Credit Sharpsburg, Georgia's RJ Performance and Jason Fields for the wiring on this car. "Jason is really the guy who brought this car together to work as reliably as it does. He's pretty sharp and we couldn't have gotten this far without him."

What's "this far?" Collins has run as quickly as 7.56 at 186 mph with this Mustang, and he only has 10 runs on the turbo combination to date! This has him being a little short on steam for the hyper-quick Pro 5.0 field (that's shrinking fast due to expense) and fairly competitive in NMCA Super Street. "We started out with an ATI Procharger combination on this car, but we felt the centrifugal setup lost too much performance when the weather got hot." In other words, he was getting his ass kicked by the turbo cars! Collins stuck with his engine builder, Steve "Dishrag" Petty, whose Woodstock, Georgia, shop took the compression in this 360ci small-block with Ford Racing "Yates" cylinder heads down from around 9:1 to 8:1 ratio for the turbo's hotter charge. The cam specs are kept close to their notebook, but know that it's making around 1,800 hp at 9,000 rpm with the help of a 98mm Precision Turbo that makes 30 pounds of boost with an HKS wastegate and bypass (and 160-pound fuel injectors).

"I don't want to sound sore," Collins explained, "but I really think that allowing the high-buck manual transmissions into the Super Street class has ruined it for a lot of guys." Chris says that he's beaten some of the best in the Mustang business, not because he went quicker with his converter and Powerglide trans, but because the opponent screwed up their clutch "tune-up" and couldn't get down the track. "It should be about racing and having fun for a reasonable price, and those trannies make it tough." We agree, but that's up to the sanctioning bodies to straighten out.

"My car can fit as much as a 33.5-inch Mickey Thompson tire under it, but I prefer racing with the 10.5W, a real street-legal race tire. That way, they still look like street cars, not tube-chassied Pro Stocks." Well put, Mr. Collins.